##Foreword

This is intended to be a companion build to Battery, which doesn’t use Legendaries. So if you’re just starting out with Athena, head on over there and see what she’s capable of with just Quest Rewards and sub-orange loot.

But, eventually you’ll get some Legendaries… So I made a build with a few of my favorites. This build can actually function against anything but Raid Bosses with just Fridgia and a Tesla grenade, but the Legendaries peppered in really add oomph. Unlike Battery, which is intended to be a leveling build, this is an endgame build, so it only really works at level 50/60. This build functions extremely well against mobs and bosses alike. Battery is a little better at taking down the Invincible Sentinel, but this one still works, and is more fun generally, since Battery is kinda one-dimensional. This build has a great mix of Melee, Maelstrom, EXPLOSIONS, and a little Defense to boot. I expect this build to become more attractive against Raids that don’t have 6 shielded phases…

##Main Loadout

###Guns

Bladed Fridgia

Staple weapon of the build. Super high freeze efficiency due to high base chance, x2 bullets per shot, and high Fire Rate. Both Freeze status and the Bladed prefix boost Melee damage, so this is a beautiful weapon. Freeze also boosts Critical Damage, which helps this gun in the DPS department as well when you need it.

Dahl Grip

Casual Torguemada

Mini-Flakker. This is easier to use than Flakker in a lot of circumstances, and especially easier to hit single person-sized enemies with. Instead of a large cube of doom, this shoots concentrated pockets of it. Each pellet has 100% additional Splash, and when they hit something, they each spawn 3 little Flaks of 100% Splash that fall down slowly and detonate after 2 seconds or if they come in contact with a new surface. If Explosions were Windex bottles, Flakker would be the “spray” setting, and Torguemada would be the “stream” setting. They both have their uses, and I’ve started carrying both.

Torgue Grip

Casual Flakker

Badass Buster. Freeze status boosts Explosive damage, and this gun does a LOT of that. When you see a Badass, throw a Quasar to strip its shield and stun it briefly, Freeze with Fridgia, then swap to Flakker and blast away. Note that the effective range actually starts a few feet in front of you. If you jump up and aim down at the enemy, you can concentrate the explosions and potentially trigger Smite at the same time. This is also a great weapon against clusters of enemies… Quasar says hi.

Torgue Grip

Luneshine: 30% chance to ignore enemy Shields.

fwap a Nukem

Shoots in an arc, meaning you can get Second Winds off those pesky Marauders who love to hide behind stuff. Also has a huge blast radius, so you don’t have to aim particularly well.

Torgue Grip, Exhaust

Tediore Sight

Luneshine: 30% chance to ignore enemy Shields.

###Other Gun Options

Laser Disker

For bosses, the reload explosions from this can often be easier to direct properly than Flakker, and since we don’t otherwise use Laser ammo, you don’t have to worry about being low when you come up to the boss. Just chuck 'em all right at him. Also works for wiping badasses off the map.

Maliwan Grip

Luneshine: 30% chance to ignore enemy Shields.

###Accessories

Grounded Black Hole Shield

My favorite Shield, ever! When depleted, it pulls enemies toward you before releasing the Nova.

Sticky Longbow Quasar Grenade

Shock Singularity with a Tesla effect. Builds lots of stacks, and has great crowd control ability. I like the sticky one specifically to pull enemies from ledges by placing the grenade on a wall.

3DD1.E, Systems Purge, or Acrobat Oz Kit (Explosive)

3DD1.E is my favorite, since its little shock thingies give you Maelstrom stacks, and it occasionally heals you, but Systems Purge adds a good bit of damage to your guns given the Oz to support it. Acrobat is for the more Melee-oriented players and the people who like to go FAST.

Celestial Gladiator Class Mod

My favorite Class Mod for a Melee Hybrid Athena. Boosts very useful things, and when you activate Aspis, your shield starts to recharge, no matter how much time was left in its Recharge Delay.

##Skill Details

Huge increase to Melee Damage after shooting an enemy. Shoot to freeze, Blood Rush for the kill!

5/5Clarity of Purpose

A bit more Melee Damage, and some Health. Not bad.

5/5Omega-Senshu

Multiplies any Damage to enemies below 50% health. Great for bosses and badasses.

1/1Rend

Applies a Bleed DOT to enemies you Melee. Doesn’t benefit from Maelstrom, but does benefit from some Melee Damage bonuses. Triggers Tear and Bloodlust.

5/5Tear

Deal more Gun Damage to Bleeding enemies. This is a multiplier like Omega-Senshu. Tear, Cryo effects, and Omega-Senshu work beautifully together. Doesn’t boost Splash Damage, so this is more for Fridgia than Flakker.

1/1Blood Rush

Overrides your Melee with a dash that deals extra damage. If you kill an enemy or apply bleed on one that wasn’t bleeding, there’s no cooldown. Freeze, then Rush! Or Rush, then Flak! Or both!

###Phalanx

5/5Ephodos

Gun Damage and Movement Speed while Aspis is active. Helps for positioning Blood Rush, and boosts the shooting that triggers Gun Kata, or the shooting after Blood Rush/Rend that benefits from Tear.

4/5Vanguard

Gives Health Regen during Aspis based on your Max Health and how much damage Aspis has absorbed.

5/5Hold The Line

Aspis duration. 'Nuff said.

1/1Prismatic Aegis

Adds 4 more slots for Aspis to absorb damage into (Fire, Shock, Corrosive, Cryo), which it can deal back and apply DOT when thrown. Fire and Shock that’s dealt from the throw will build Maelstrom stacks, too.

1/1Clear!

Instantly revive allies by throwing Aspis at them, and get 1.4x Damage in Fight For Your Life. Great skill.

5/5Return Fire

Chance to reflect bullets and lasers back at enemies, which can trigger Gun Kata, Smite, and Systems Purge, inflict DOT, and build Maelstrom stacks if Fire or Shock is reflected. Decent passive damage, I prefer it to Prepare For Glory because of the Melee focus of this build.

1/1Wrath of the Goddess

Thrown Aspis can bounce to 4 additional targets, -33% damage each bounce. Excellent synergy with Zeus’ Rage and Clear!, which will both activate on each bounce. With this skill, Zeus’ Rage and Prismatic Aegis can build you a lot of Maelstrom stacks, as well.

###Ceraunic Storm

1/1Maelstrom

Storm Front and Quasar build tons of stacks, which boosts damage you deal other than Non-Elemental (e.g. Melee) or Bleed. Yes, it does boost Cryo and Explosive!

4/4Storm Weaving

Fire Rate and Effect Chance for 9 seconds after weapon swap. Merely required, but it’s also handy on Flakker/Fridgia swaps.

5/5Gathering Tempest

Mag Size and Reload Speed. Good to have on Flakker, especially.

1/5Conduit

Percentage Shield Regen based on Maelstrom stacks while you have a Shock DOT active on an enemy, such as from Storm Front and Quasar.

1/1Smite

Additional and powerful Shock and Fire hit when you shoot an enemy while Airborne and have 10+ Maelstrom stacks. 12 second cooldown.

5/5Unrelenting

Fire Rate and Weapon Swap Speed based on Maelstrom stacks after a kill. Even during normal combat, you can get quite a few stacks without even trying, but this skill really shows its power against Raid Bosses in combination with Elemental Barrage. See Raid Boss section below.

1/1Zeus’ Rage

Adds a Shock and Fire storm to Aspis throw impacts, which adds a few stacks and deals decent damage over a few seconds. Triggers with each bounce from Wrath of the Goddess.

5/5Elemental Barrage

During Storm Weaving, weapons have a chance to not consume ammo, based on Maelstrom stacks. This goes hand-in-hand with Unrelenting, because it mitigates the increased ammo consumption due to increased Fire Rate. At 700 or more stacks, all shots are free during Storm Weaving. This is pretty important for Raid Bosses. See Raid Boss section below.

Not the most impressive in terms of DPS, but it does have excellent Fire Rate and good ammo consumption, which makes it an excellent tool to accumulate large amounts of Maelstrom stacks against spongy bosses. Stacks are a function of individual hits per second, making high-fire-rate shotguns ideal for this purpose because they throw lots of pellets downrange very fast. For more info on stacking mechanics and theory, click here.

Hyperion Grip

Torgue Stock

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Practicable Development (Shock)

Once you have about 700 stacks, switch to this weapon. Elemental Barrage will ensure that you don’t have to worry about the ammo cost of this 4-barrel shotgun, while Unrelenting ensures you will be firing fast enough to maintain and even accumulate more stacks. Ideally you’ll never have to reload this one, so there’s no point in using the Glitch rarity. Instead, go for a Purple with Luneshine.

Hyperion Grip (accuracy) or Jakobs Grip (damage)

Torgue Stock

Luneshine: 10% Critical Hit Damage Bonus.

Casual Torguemada, or Casual Flakker

If the enemy resists Shock (such as one of the Sentinel’s phases), use whichever one of these you prefer (and can hit with) once you have well over 700 stacks from Thinking, Development, and/or Storm Front.

fwap a Nukem

Same as the main spec. You might want to keep this handy, just in case.

###Raid Boss Accessories

[Immunity] Asteroid Belt Shield

Ideally you’ll have one of every DOT-causing elemental immunity, but Grounded and Alkaline are the most useful at the moment because of the giant Sentinel inflicting these two DOT all over the arena. I like this shield in particular for Raid Bosses because the homing meteors it shoots can easily kill flying enemies, who are jerks and deserve it.

Priority: Grounded > Alkaline > Warming > Inflammable

Bomber or Strafing Run Oz Kit

For bosses, we can switch to a semi-CS build using Storm Front and a Bomber Oz Kit for oodles of stacks, which boost everything but Non-Elemental and Bleed damage and give us a lot of survivability with Conduit. If you prefer to gain stacks with guns, use Strafing Run instead. Any element will do, but Shock or Explosive is preferred for basic synergies.

Longbow Storm Front Grenade

This is the best Grenade I’ve ever seen for building Maelstrom stacks. Along with the Bomber Oz Kit, you can toss so many of these you’ll have more stacks than you know what to do with. Try shooting.

Surging Storm Class Mod

You have everything you need to make Storm do work against Raid Bosses. You’ll have to be more careful due to lower defensive ability compared to Celestial Gladiator, but the difference in DPS potential is enormous.

Shock Damage (erroneously says Electrocute)

+6 Unrelenting

+5 Storm Weaving

##Techniques

Draco Meteor

Push B to do a butt-slam, then immediately Blood Rush. This takes some practice, but it can add a substantial amount of damage to your Rushes, especially with an Explosive Oz Kit against a Frozen enemy.

Fridgia-no-kata

Shoot an enemy to Freeze, Blood Rush/Draco Meteor to activate Tear, aim for a Critical zone and fire away.

[EXPLOSION NOISE]

As above, except switch to Flakker or Torguemada after the Blood Rush/Draco Meteor. This is for Badasses.

Double Dash!!

Often, you can cheaply and quickly kill small enemies by simply using Blood Rush against them twice, especially if you Froze them first. Remember that Omega-Senshu applies to Melee as well. Try to get a feel for which enemies you can instantly kill from half health.

Sticky Situation

Get used to finding good walls to place your Longbow Sticky Quasar on to pull enemies off ledges or out from behind cover. Aspis up and Rush them.

The Five-Foot Flakker Rule

The distance that enemies get knocked back by Blood Rush is about the distance you want to be to use Flakker. You can also jump into the air and fire down at them to get better results since floor collision compresses Flakker’s explosion cube.

This is one of the most fun Athena builds IMO. It has incredible diversity. I espesially enjoy the choice between using the flakker on cyroed enemies, or using melee. It means there is always an option no matter the situation. It leads to a very fun playstyle as the player doesn’t feel forced to repetitive tasks every fight.

Not sure what direction I am going to take the Butcher build in yet. My melee build might either go more Phalanx or (more likely) converge towards this (with swapping Vanguard for Bloodlust most likely).

Small adjustment: moved the point from Unrelenting into Gathering Tempest because I realized it gave me an extra shot on Flakker, Badaboom, and potentially Nukem (which I’m considering putting in the build instead of Badaboom for its ability to shoot over obstacles and enormous radius).

Plus Storm Weaving already gives a good amount of Fire Rate after a swap. Unrelenting generally only did anything against the Sentinel because of the sheer amount of stacks you can accrue. But I’d much rather use Battery for that anyway.

Yeah, Bombers are also very good general choices for CS and hybrid. That said, I like 3DD1.E’s extra health and shield boosts even against bosses. But situationally, sure, there’s better choices (like Ack Ack vs. RK5, etc).